364 THE PORCUPINE. 



Bauer, alias Agricola, the author of a work on subterranean 

 animals, published at Basil in 1549, says that this animal was 

 imported into Europe from Africa. 



It is nearly two feet in length when full grown, and some 

 of its longest spines, or quills, are more than a foot long. The 

 general colour of the animal is a grizzled dusky black, resulting 

 from an intermixture of various shades of black, brown, and 

 white. On the upper part of the head and neck is a crest 

 of long lighter coloured hairs, capable of being raised or 

 depressed at pleasure. The hair and quills retain their colour 

 all the summer, but as the weather becomes warmer in the 

 spring, the fur grows thinner. 



It resides under ground in burrows of its own digging, which 

 have several distinct openings ; and only quits them in the 

 evening in search of food, which consists principally of roots, 

 buds, leaves, and fruits. It is particularly fond, however, of 

 the bark of the juniper. Pringle speaks of its " plundering the 

 melon-beds."* It is said that it will eat blistering flies (Can- 

 tharides) without injury to itself. In summer it laps water 

 like a cat or dog, but carefully avoids entering it; and in 

 winter it eats snow. 



When frightened or enraged it erects its quills, and presents 

 a very formidable appearance ; and judging from the looseness 

 of their attachment, and from facts in the history of the 

 Canadian species (Hystrix dorsata), it is probable that they 

 sometimes break off and remain fixed in the bodies of animals, 

 or other objects with which they then come in contact. 



Ghost. " I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 



Would make thy knotty and combined locks to part, 

 And each particular hair to stand on end 

 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." 



(Hamlet, I. 5.) 



Yet, there is no truth in the old story of the animal defending 

 itself by ejecting its quills from its body like a shower of 

 arrows. 



* Ephemerides (1828), p. 110. 



